In a move towards tightening fiscal policies, the government on Friday announced putting an end to the Duty Entitlement Passbook Book Scheme (DEPB), effective October 1. The revenue forgone to exporters last year on account of
DEPB was to the tune of Rs 8,700 crore. Exporters who will be affected mainly are from the engineering sector, including auto and auto component industry, chemicals, pharma, textiles and the marine sectors.
The finance ministry has, however, said the withdrawal of the export promotion scheme would not affect revenues as exporters would be allowed to claim benefit from duty drawback, the list of which has been expanded to 4,000 items now. All the 2,130 items from the DEPB scheme have been incorporated into the duty drawback schedule.
Though 1,030 items from the DEPB list were already figuring in the drawback schedule, now 1,100 additional items have been incorporated. These items will, however, suffer lower drawback rates. "The refunds would be reduced by 1-3%," finance secretary R S Gujral said.
Source : ccfgroup.com